Snow

We're right around the 12-14 inches line. I believe it... there's alot of snow out there. Anyone want to bring over a snowtube? The hill is ready!

Last Harvest 2009

Potatoes, carrots and onions do fine underground right until the ground freezes. Potato vines had died off in September, but the onions and carrots still had greens. Time to dig them all up since the ground will freeze solid in a couple weeks.

Experimental potato growing here. I had some leftover kennebec potatoes sprouting last spring and figured might as well plant them somewhere. These two rocks are about 1.5 feet apart so I took some old landscaping timbers and made a raised bed. They grew really well, and didn't get effected by blight (So, try saving potato seed even though you are not supposed to)
Digging out the bed, yield about 25 lbs... from leftover potatoes!



Here are the carrots and onions while they were growing in July:


Same bed, under 6" of leaf mulch and 2" of snow:
About 20lbs of Bolero carrots and 5 lbs of very stinky onions. Bolero carrots are supposed to store well.... we'll see.
These are from the potato towers... definitely a disapointment. Maybe 10lbs per tower, not even close to the 100lbs advertised.


Little Miss 40 checking out the potatoes:

Gone Fishing.... for the 10th Amendment

Something funny happened this week in the tiny state of Rhode Island.

Remember the 10th amendment of the US Constitution from civics class?

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The state assembly passed a $7 saltwater fishing license requirement in order to block a federal mandate requiring the same. The federal Magnuson Act requires everyone who fishes in saltwater to register for 'survey purposes', to track fish stock and fishing habits. Well, it's a tax. A tax on fishing.

But, our state reps didn’t challenge the federal law even though it violates the RI state constitution that guarantees "Fishery rights -- Shore privileges" .... "The people shall continue to enjoy and freely exercise all the rights of fishery, and the privileges of the shore, to which they have been heretofore entitled under the charter and usages of this state, including but not limited to fishing from the shore....

Instead our state reps decided to block the requirement of the federal program by passing our own registration fee (tax) so that we wouldn't need to fall under the federal program. Read all about it here.

Now, I'm no big fan of our Governor, but at least he (along with many other states) have begun to push back on federal regulations that violate state sovereignty. Citing the 10th amendment, the Governor correctly vetoed this new law as it violates our state constitution!

Of course, all day long I heard "it's 'just' $7!", but, the point is it's yet another fee to do something that is a guaranteed right! The governor was right in vetoing this intrusion by the Feds (even though he will probably have it over-ridden). But at least one tiny slice of personal liberty was briefly preserved by the smallest state in the US!

Land Clammin'

It's harvest time around the Beermuda Triangle. Get it before it freezes. Most stuff above ground is done (except for Kale and Chard). The underground stuff is doing well but it's time to dig the root crops before the ground freezes solid in late November/early December.

All my carrots, beets, some onions, most potatoes, are still in the ground. Parsnips are going to stay at least till Thanksgiving, and some will overwinter under mulch, plastic, and maybe a cold frame.

This saturday the Forties and the Crayons families took the young'ns out trick or treating(well the adults went trick or treating, the kids slept mostly) to a local farm/winery. Check them out... pretty cool huh?



Afterwards we stopped at the Casa de Crayons to let the kiddies rest inside and the manly men went outside to dig up potatoes. And drink beer and partake in congratulatory baby cigars.

This year was our first experiment with these above ground potato bins. In theory you can get 100lbs of potatoes from each bin. Before we started digging, it was time to work on the last of the Octoberfest from RAJAHADAB weekend. There's only a little left. About mid-way we took a break for more Octoberfest, and to check yields. Not even close to 100lbs. Granted it was a very bad year for potatoes around here. Too wet, too cold, too much blight.
Overall, a sinkful for the Crayons. Worth the effort... it's very satisfying to grow your own.
Last year I didn't do much better in traditional underground rows. I haven't dug my bins up completely, so I'll see how I did there. I did try Tire Taters and those did alright. (sorry no good pic) The real benefit of those was there's no digging. Just flip up the tire onto a tarp, and out rolls taters! I only got a couple tires tall, but that seemed to be okay because most of them were in the first tire. Next year I'm going to go back to a traditional trench/row, and the rest in tires. I didn't really like the towers because it was hard to fill the towers, and I didn't find any taters in the top couple tiers, only the bottom tiers.
I do still have one more experiment going in the garden, potato-wise. I filled the sides inbetween two rocks with some scrap landscaping timbers. Then, I planted the potato seed inbetween the rocks and filled with dirt inbetween the rocks. This is the bed where I planted the old potatoes from last year that had sprouted in the root cellar. I figured it was worth a shot.

Oh, this post is called Land Clamming because that is what it is like digging potatoes. Alot of fun with beer, ever shovel full of dirt could discover a hidden cache of taters. Just like clammin'.

RAJAHADAB wrap up

So we had RAJAHADAB Vol 6. It was a raging success. It was a bit cold and rained on Sunday, but it was still a good time. The new track was wonderful even though it started out slow on the new "northern passage". Hopefully it'll be in even better shape next time.

We want to thank Flat Tires for figuring out the new track. Also a big thanks to Mrs. Flat Tires for the use of the house. The basement was wonderful.

Oh yeah, Flat Tires lived up to his name. We were hanging out for about 15 minutes. We started to get cold, so we decided to take off. And Flat Tires then finds out he has a flat tire. And so Greased Up Deaf Guy says, I have a tube, and tosses out a road tube. We all thought it looked a bit small when he pulled it out (giggle, giggle).

RAJAHADAB

Only a little over a week till RAJAHADAB Vol. 6, BABY!!!! I'm pretty excited. I know a lot of other people are too. Plus I'm taking Friday off to help celebrate the weekend. And who knows, maybe I'll be sick *cough*cough* on Monday.

So lube up those chains (amounst other things), put some air in those tires, and dust off the ride cause it's time to drink alotta beer. Oh, yeah, and go for a killer bike ride.

Harvest

Soooo... Where did everyone go? Facebook?

Tonight I brought in the pumpkins and squash. They weren't quite done but the deer have been poking around in there putting nicks and hoof marks in the skin.

Some of the pumpkins got eaten from the inside by stem-boring bugs. So I have about four or five that must be disposed of creatively. Target practice this weekend?

I let a whole bunch of plants go to seed. Here is where pea seeds come from... Peas! You let them dry out on the vine, then pick and take the dry peas out of the husks. This is the 'dwarf gray sugar' heirloom variety. I planted 25 seeds and let them all go. I got over 300 seeds out of them. Better yield than a Madoff fund. Yeah.

Speaking of RAJAHADAB, it's in less than a month! I still haven't been riding this year.... I already am hurting just thinking of the ride.

-40.

Garden, end of summer

Here's the front yard gardens June 15th:
August 15th:


Squash/corn beds June 15th
August 15th

Not a good year for tomatoes or potatoes, stupid blight.

Little 40oz is growing pretty good. But not sleeping. I'm a zombie.

-40

Little Miss Forty goes home

My summer recently

There's something magical about watching movies outside. Not sure why. It's just more fun. This past Saturday, GardenGirl and a few other people went to a local shopping plaza and watch The Dark Knight outside. Every Saturday night during the summer they show a movie outside. Next week is Ironman. They set up a large inflatable screen and have a projector. We brought a bunch of food and had a picnic there.

I came home the other night from work and there were about thirty turkey feather all over my deck, mostly in the corner. Now this weird enough except my deck is on the second floor. But flying up there alone wouldn't cause their feathers to fall out, I would think. So either there was a turkey fight on my deck, or it saw it's reflection in my sliding glass door and started freaking out.

Not too much going on here besides that. Been getting used to the new house and the associated work that goes along with it. I've also been trying to get in shape for RAJHADAB. Not sure exactly when it's going to be, but you all need to start riding soon.

And all the little ones are on the way. Good luck to everyone and I'll see y'all soon.

Also, I never knew fresh beets turn your pee pink. I'll have to eat them more often for the fun of it.

Great weekend!

Not much else to say. Our friend Big B came down with his new girlfriend... we'll call her 'Buffy'. We kept her away from Mercy Brown just in case. Here we are taking a break from the river trip to burn stuff. The river is in prime condition this year with all the rain. Just go on a windy day because the misquitos are brutal otherwise.
Kaptain Krunch and the Mrs are down for the next few weeks. They brought their new boat, a Hudson Bay Freighter. Of course Kaptain has it all customized for hardcore fishing and messing about. Here we are after a morning on the saltpond we took it for a trip up the river from bradford. The little 4 stroke pushed it upstream easily. We went as far as the trestle bridge, then floated back downriver. Kaptain had the great idea to use this boat for next year's Fartab. I think its a great idea to get the camping gear to the site with zero effort or excessive car-dropping.
Zak thinks the boat rocks too:
One of the customizations is decking up front for a fly fishing platform. Or sitting up on a recliner sipping a beverage. Perfect.

The High End of Low Tech

I had a Thermodynamics professor who explained the earth would be a better place if you could help 4 billion people who cook/heat/live by firewood use less fuel wood than if you got a few hundred thousand yuppies driving hybrids. Think about it. He's not the only one who thinks that way. Many million$$ have been spent developing high efficiency wood cookstoves for those for who burning wood is a way of life, not a choice. The very impressive folks at Aprovecho have developed a simple, low cost, wood cookstove that can boil a gallon of water in 20 minutes (2x as fast) and using 1/2 the wood as the next closest 'technology'. Again, not a big deal to you or me who have the choice of electric stove, propane, or wood, but to those out there who have no choice, cutting one of their biggest daily expenses in half is a HUGE improvement.

Last week I ordered one to try out from Stove Tec (retail end of Aprovecho) and test fired it this weekend. It works on a very basic principle: Hot fires burn clean and efficient. The concept has gotten the name "Rocket Stove". I highly recommend you make or buy one for yourself to try out. I really want to brew a batch of "Off the Grid Ale' over this thing.... it would be perfect for that.

Switch Topics:

Time to harvest some of the early crops. Here is what onions look like when they're growing. This patch is companion planted with carrots. Yup, carrots grow in between the onions, and there is no room for weeds to grow. It works. You know when to harvest the onions when the tops fall over or when they send up flower stalks. I did the math on onions.... we eat about one or two a week. A bag of onions 'sets' is about a buck, and is enough onions for a year for us. It may not sound like much, but for something so easy to grow that takes up so little space, it is pretty satisfying to grow your own.

Stuff I learned this week.

When a turtle is hiding in his/her shell, then pokes out and starts walking, it *really* freaks out a beagle. In Snoopy's mind, I'm sure he thinks he just saw a rock get up and walk across the road. He started barking at other rocks to get them to wake up and walk. It didn't work.

Goats will go into the kitchen if you leave the door open.

Shiloh is happy when it stops raining every five days.
When it stops raining it is time to go fishing.

Monsoons, Tractor Computers, and Fishin'.

It started raining about a month ago and only stopped twice. I measured 1.5 feet in the last two weeks in my 5 gallon bucket on the deck. I had to clean the gutters, while I was up there I snapped a picture of the front-yard gardens. They're doing ok. The corn won't be 'knee high by 4th of July' but I don't see any old timer farmers doing any better around here.

I took a random day off to go fishing. The river was freaking sweet on wednesday.


This week I headed over to help Joe with his computer. It was smashed. We took it apart down to the boards, did some solderin' and it worked! Joe's computer is back on the job surfing the interweb for tractors. I love the beermuda triangle.

Hopefully this rain stops soon. Driving me nuts.